Sorry to bother you with this again. I have posted about this 2 times in the last 6 months already, because it is a fascinating topic and i want to talk about it. The issue is, whether there is renewable energy in the universe (truly renewable). Solar energy is called “renewable” but ultimately the sun will burn out. What then?
I have last time gotten the answers that “it’s a stupid question because we have more urgent problems, such as corrupt politics etc.”. Frankly, i disagree. This question is of existential importance, because it gives us an outlook into the far future. These perspectives are more valuable than playing 15 minutes of a computer game, which you could do instead of reading this article.
I uploaded a neat PDF here: https://files.catbox.moe/p8tg6i.pdf
Additionally i will copy-paste the article text here.
Spider Web Cosmology
From: https://feddit.org/u/gandalf_der_12te
Date: 2026-07-26
Subject: Renewable energy in a cosmological context
Abstract
In this paper i present a simple and clear approach to extract useful energy out of the cosmic expansion using mithril material wires, i.e. wires with very high Young’s modulus and ultimate tensile strength. This energy is renewable, such that it represents a continuous and probably eternal power source.
Introduction and Motivation
The industrial revolution has allowed for a significant growth of humanity. While global population numbers were around 300 million around 1000 CE, it scaled to almost 8 billion by 2000 CE. That is an almost 30-fold increase. This was made possible largely by two inventions: the combustion-engine driven tractor and the natural-gas-based ammonia synthesis. Both consume massive amounts of energy, which mostly came from fossil fuels, which are not renewable. This naturally raises the question of whether humanity will ever run out of energy, which would induce a reversal of this massive growth, i.e. a significant population shrinkage. Related to this is the problem of climate change, i.e. whether there exists a long-lasting energy source that does not poison our own living conditions that we rely on.
Ever since solar energy started around 2020 to become economically competitive, many people have felt deep relief from the anxiety around climate change and the threat that humanity would eventually run out of fuel. However, the sun is predicted to burn out in approximately 10 billion years, and then humanity will have to find a new source of energy. While other stars do exist, those too will eventually run out of energy, with the slowest- burning stars (red dwarf stars) predicted to last for approximately 1000 billion years. Slower-burning stars do not practically exist as they would not be massive enough to ignite nuclear fusion in the first place.
What other sources of energy are there in cosmology? Especially, do sources exist that do not run out after a while, i.e. that are truly renewable?
Scope and Context
This paper uses the insights from general relativity, especially cosmic expansion, and simple mechanics to present a mechanism for renewable power in cosmology. While quantum aspects, such as vacuum energy, are highly interesting and might slightly change the reality, they’re left out of this analysis and regarded as an extra feature of nature that will have to be stacked on top of this one.
Mechanism
The term „spider web cosmology“ is justified if one visualizes the core concepts of this proposal:
An array of wires made from a very thin (lightweight) material called „Mithril“ are laid out throughout the universe, which have extremely high elasticity (Young’s modulus), which means they exert force when stretched without significantly changing length.
Living organisms reside at the intersection points. As the intersection points are pulled away from each other over time, the wires between them will be stretched. The force that each wire exerts can then be calculated from Hooke’s law: F=σ⋅A=E⋅ε⋅A , with F being force, σ being stress, E being Young’s modulus, ε being axial strain, A being cross-section area.
The mithril wires are chains of small link elements. As the living organisms at the intersection point let the wires contract from time to time, while generating power from that contraction, new link elements are produced and attached to the wire.
The mithril wires have to be produced from new matter that gets produced from a matter-anti-matter pair, that gets produced from the energy harvested from the chain relaxation. In other words, the chain has to release more energy when it relaxes than the rest mass of the mithril chain links.
This is why this mithril material has to be extremely lightweight while still having high Young’s modulus and high ultimate tensile strength. Practically speaking, I’m not entirely sure whether such a material could exist. Using simplifications and a linear model of elasticity, common steel does not have good enough properties for this application.
I will proof this in the following calculation. For this, we have to look at the rest mass of a steel chain link and the energy that can be released when the chain is relaxed by the length of one link element. Let x be the length of one link element.
The work W1 released by the chain is W 1=F⋅x=E⋅ε⋅A⋅x , while the rest mass (rest energy W2) of one chain link is W 2= ρ⋅A⋅x with density ρ, therefore for W1 to be larger than W2 one gets the relation E⋅ε > ρ. Comparing this to the actual values for steel:
- E is around 200 GPa (2·10¹¹ J/m³)
- ρ is around 8 000 kg/m³, equivalent to a rest energy of around 8·10²⁰ J/m³
Therefore, ε would have to be larger than 4·10⁹, i.e. the steel wire would have to stretch to 4 billion times its usual length. However, commercially available steel used in construction typically breaks apart for ε > 3·10⁻³ (Source: Wikipedia). These steel wires would have to have a factor 10¹² higher ultimate tensile strength!!
The judgement is still out on whether a good enough mithril material could hypothetically exist.
I think it is great that you have committed so much effort to learning about how our world works and I would encourage you to continue to pursue your interests in cosmology.
However, the peer-review process in science is an important thing, and the simple fact that you have been struggling to get people to engage with your thesis for the past 6 months is the peer-review process at work, though not necessarily in a formal, academic setting.
For real, this paper you’ve written is science fiction. I truly believe that society needs to go beyond the limitations of science itself, into a process of Post-Normal Science, but Post-Normal Science is a very different thing than science fiction. Post-Normal Science is still subject to peer-review such that the assertions and assumptions are still logically consistent with our empirical reality. As an example of the distinction, though there are a lot of different elements out there in our universe, we have to make materials using the properties that those elements have available to us, we can’t make up the properties that we want the material to have first then try and force the elements to do precisely what we want them to.
Please accept with humility, this paper isn’t going to win a Nobel prize. However, don’t let that reality stop you from looking for answers to the questions you clearly are so passionate about. KEEP GOING!
To try and be a little more supportive I would encourage you to learn more about thermodynamics. Here is a question that has fascinated some of the most brilliant scientists in history that we still have no formalized answer to:
If the second law of thermodynamics states that entropy is always tending to a maximum, and that increasing disorder defines the arrow of time, how is it possible that life even exists? Humans are insanely complex, and exist by taking simple atoms and molecules and combining them in an intricate ordered structure. The different layers of external and internal complex structure is incalculable; we are extremely highly ordered in a universe forcing disorder.
As an example I’ll point out Schrödinger’s 1944 book called “What is Life” where he suggested the concept of ‘negentropy’ as a potential answer to this question. This question is relevant to your thesis, as realistically it is useful energy (or a Demon, I suppose) that is needed to do the work in ordering, that is, working against the 2nd law, and you’re thesis is trying to find a truly renewable (i.e. infinite) energy source in the universe with which to achieve the Demon’s task.
Since it is clear that you have a solid foundational background in physics, I would recommend reading Isabelle Stenger’s work on thermodynamics and dissipative structures. Very specifically, try chapter 10 of her book “Power and Invention: Situating Science”.
One prevailing argument here is that dissipated energy (i.e. heat) can never be converted into useful work (a different interpretation of the 2nd law). Some even argue that the expansion of the universe (the gradient that your web is attempting to extract useful energy from) is caused by the constant increase in dissipated energy that the 2nd law forces on our universe. Now this is only one interpretation of the existing thermodynamic framework in our scientific community, but this view is explicitly saying that useful work can never be extracted from the expansion of the universe, unfortunately contradicting your main thesis.
Thank you very much for your hard work and contributions to society here in bringing these ideas forward in this space to inspire public discourse and debate.
so your whole comment is very belittling and i would not give that advice to a five-year old child because while you do say “thank you for your contribution”, you did not actually interact with the content. i assume you glanced over it and said “well that won’t work because … idk. if it worked, i’d have already heard about it”. that does not stimulate discussion but hinder it.
so first of all, actually this is precisely what has happened in science multiple times over. the chemical element germanium was theoretically predicted first (by mendelejev) and only after that was it experimentally discovered. the planet neptune was first posited to exist based on mathematical calculations, only after that has it been found in the night sky. so yes, we do routinely make predictions about absurd and exotic stuff and only after that actually start looking for it.
Also this has nothing to do with thermodynamics. Thermodynamics historically developed to describe hot gases and combustion engines, things on everyday-life scales. It’s never made to describe processes on cosmological scale. I hope that you do not seriously apply that theory outside of its intended context, because those results would be meaningless. There is no indication that cosmological processes would have to adhere to the second law of thermodynamics (or if you do have such indication, please send it to me, i’d like to see it). Please make as little unnecessary assumptions as possible.
I didn’t mean to belittle anyone.
I was simply trying to suggest some interesting further reading on the topic you are studying and engaged with. This is an area of interest of mine as well.
ok, thanks :) is there something that you would like to know more about specifically? i might be able to give you some hints as well